Students’ Views

So what’s been going on lately in my life? That’s an interesting question. You see, in the last seven days, I have permanently lost my cell phone, have had my computer crashed, and had to hunt 20 people down to sign some papers on their busiest day- Monday.

Not the best week of my life, I’ll tell you that. Or is it? You see, when engaging in introspection I find that I am not that frustrated. Not that stressed, either. I’m not even that sad. Yeah, I’m tired, but what’s new?

The fact of the matter is that I’m taking all of this rather well. And I think that how someone handles being isolated from the world and having no access to the files on their computer is a good measure of how happy they are. According to this measure, I just might be the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. And hey, I’m a psychology major, so this must be science, no?

So to determine why exactly I am so unperturbed, let me tell a bit more about the past week:

Last Friday was pledge retreat for Alpha Phi Omega (APO), the service fraternity I’ve pledged. I’ve really enjoyed pledge-ship so far. I was voted pledge-class President, which I suppose doesn’t say too much, because we hardly knew each other when elections took place, but I think it’s been a nice fit so far. I like everyone who’s pledged, and the actives are all good people too. It’s made for a rather pleasant experience overall.

So the retreat went very well. We went to a park in Austin and camped out. We built a fire, grilled, and then played Mafia, an interesting group game which is too complicated to discuss in type, and then we went to bed. Mafia was really fun, I must say. Those of us who were able to stay really got to know each other for the first time.

In the morning, after breakfast, another small fire (made from nothing but the ashes from the night before, no matches), and camp cleanup, we cleaned about a half mile of shoreline the park had on a lake, as a way to repay the park for not charging us for the camp sites. After two hours of that, and after half an hour driving back to G-town, I went straight to another service project (no lunch) where a ComputerWorks headquarters for Goodwill needed us to TAKE APART COMPUTERS!! That was fun, two screwdrivers, and there we went. Some plastic parts needed to be ripped of metal parts, and I don’t know, I really enjoy using my hands and mind like that (it was tricky stuff, let me tell you, those screws can hide).

Sunday I went to go see the movie 21 with some acquaintances of mine, and we had a good time and it was a good movie. Last night, a friend of mine, Saul, helped me recover the files off of my computer by running a small version of an OS off of my RAM (without needing my corrupted hard drive).

So, in general I’ve been feeling busy and tired, but the busyness has really made me feel almost like I have purpose. I don’t pretend to be feeling ecstatic, but I have a quote that goes out with every email I send, that goes something like this:

“Happiness is not something you experience, it’s something you remember.”

And something tells me that one day I’ll look back at this period of time here at SU and have some rather fond memories.